Look At My Briefs -- 7/31/09

We've all had a few stressful days (he said, projecting his existence onto that of the whole world) so why not wind down the week with a look at some brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.

This will end well. The Rockford Files is one of the first shows I really loved so, naturally, they've decided to remake it and screw it up. Sure, they haven't even cast it yet, but "This is totally going to suck" is the assumption I make when dealing with new television shows and that goes double for TV classics. Some good news is that House creator David Shore is behind the reboot but that's not enough. I won't believe it's any good until it's run for around 5 years and people start saying, "Wow, this isn't as good as it was in season 2." Expect me to make a similar complaint in 2025 when the 3rd Rockford Files remake is announced.

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Heroes has been dying on the vine for about two years now. In the first season, you couldn't have asked for a better show. Since then, you can not only ask for one but you could get downright verbally abusive when doing so. It started showing signs of life in the second half of the last season so maybe so maybe this trailer is a sign of good things to come and not just artful marketing.



Then again, maybe this is the season they go all in with the "Let's make Mohinder Suresh into a mutated spider villain" idea and maybe they'll make Claire even more helpless than she already is. Perhaps they'll think that the fact neither of those have worked so far means that the odds of success will now tip in their favor.

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I forget that everyone isn't me and that there are people who live and die by things about which I could not care less. For example, until a tempest-in-a-teapot scandal began forming around her, I had no idea who Rachel LeFevre was. Had you told me she played Victoria in Twilight, I'd have asked who the hell Victoria was. Upon being informed that she played the evil vampire chick girlfriend of douchebag vampire villain James, I'd have said, "Oh, well, all rightie then," and gone on with whatever I was doing, something I can assure you was in no way related to Twilight. But that's me and most of the planet isn't me and a hefty portion of the they who are not me actually care a great deal about Twilight and whether or not Rachel What's-Her-Name plays Victoria in the Twilight sequels and they all got hot and bothered over the idea that she's being replaced by Opie Cunningham's daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard. How Rachel LeFevre gained such a devoted following to make a controversy like this possible is a mystery to me. If memory serves, she clocked in about five minutes of screen time in the whole movie and, in that five minutes, left such an impression on me that, if she shot me in the face, I'd be unable to tell the authorities that she was the culprit. Anyway, I'm scared to click any of the links in that article though this one...

A fan has put together a dramatized script set in the Summit Entertainment offices, with execs discussing the Lefevre situation. Some of the dialogue is pie-in-the-sky speculation, but it's a funny, non-traditional approach to editorializing the news.

...is one I might look into later just to see if, as I predict, the author of that little skit will mainly have studio execs behind this decision saying things like, "Duh, we suk, huh huh, let's go eat our own poop." I could confirm whether or not I'm right by visiting the site and reading the skit but, to put it lightly, Twilight fandom is not a pretty sight and should be avoided by most people. By me, anyway.

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I'm pleasantly surprised to see the headline "Meryl Streep: Bankable Franchise". She's a national treasure who's still pumping out quality work (I'm willing to ignore Mamma Mia) after three decades in the movie business. She's also in a movie that I'll go see to recover from the near-certain clusterfuck that will be G.I. Joe. It's great that she's a popular movie draw. Since only so many people can be stars, that means she's taking one of those coveted spots away from someone else and sparing us headlines like "Rob Schneider Mania Sweeps The Nation" or "Dane Cook Is Cooking With Gas" and for that, we should all light a candle and pray for Meryl's fruitful existence to continue for a long time to come.

Almost But Not Quite

I almost made it to the end of the month without taking a day off. Unfortunately, a sick relative coupled with a work schedule change took up all my free time. Best I can do is give you a funny video to watch. This is a German pop band from the 80s with their lyrics not-quite-translated.



Should be back tomorrow.

They've Given You A Number

Don't have much time today so I think I'll fill your time with a nine minute clip and a few paragraphs.

I go back and forth about what my all time favorite television show is. Sometimes it's Mystery Science Theater 3000, the simple and brilliant comedy where a guy and two puppets make fun of bad movies. Other days I'll say Monty Python's Flying Circus. And then there are the days when I quite firmly will say The Prisoner.

The Prisoner is a British show made in the late 60s in which Patrick McGoohan played a spy who resigned from his top secret job but refused to say why. He was then captured and brought to a place called the Village and started an existence that defines the word "surreal". They called him Number Six (we never found out his real name) and, over the course of 17 episodes, came up with various ways to get him to confess why he resigned, most of which involved subtle manipulations. They could alter his perceptions and memories but he was strong enough to keep that one bit of information they wanted out of reach. Along the way, we were introduced to a succession of characters called Number Two, a mysterious dwarf butler who may or may not have been on Six's side and a monster called Rover who would track Six down when he tried to escape. Rover was, in reality, a weather balloon and shouldn't have been frightening, but it was.

Flash forward to 2009. AMC has decided to do an updated Prisoner mini-series which begs the question, "How will they screw it up? Will it just be lame or will its failure be of epic proportions?" That's what I was saying until I saw this (this is about nine minutes long):



Oh my god, could The Prisoner actually end up being good? It seems impossible but that preview isn't half bad. Its makers are showing wisdom in changing some of the basic storyline. Really, when doing a remake, it's dumb to adhere to the source material 100%. I think the art direction was better in the original series. The Village in 1967 had an unreal look to it, as if a caricature of an idyllic country town had come to life. Some of the plot elements are different too but we'll have to wait and see how that works. Of course, you couldn't have made a better choice than Ian McKellen for Number Two.

I'll be really surprised if this updated version of The Prisoner manages to hold up. Then again, I was surprised many years ago when I ended up liking this acid trip of a series in the first place. We'll just have to wait. Until then, be seeing you.

Past and Future

First off, thanks a lot, America, for keeping The Ugly Truth from premiering at the #1 spot last weekend. This makers of this love letter to misogyny and stupidity got to explain to their families how mega awesome their #3 premiere behind talking gerbils and broomstick riding teenagers was and how they really did better than they thought they would. Then maybe their moms will ask if a sequel is in the works and they will run screaming.

While we're on the subject of Harry Potter, why do people keep saying the kids who've been playing the Harry Potter trio are too old the Harry Potter trio? In a commercial for the upcoming Judd Apatow comedy Funny People, Jonah Hill is joking about it, saying something along the lines of Harry Potter being in his 40s. It's true that Daniel Radcliffe is not the right age to be playing 18 year old Harry Potter. He's 20 now and normally an 18 year old is played by someone 24 and older. This also disqualifies 19 year old Emma Watson and 21 year old Rupert Grint from continuing to play Hermione and Ron.

But enough of the past. Let's look far into future, a time so distant the only name we have for it is, "This coming Friday," which brings us back to the subject of Funny People. I've been trying to figure out if this was going to be any good or not. Initially, I don't think it was marketed very well but they've improved their strategy which mainly involves focusing on the movie's funniest moments and deemphasizing the serious side. It would be great if they could trick people into thinking this is one of those goofy Adam Sandler movies instead of a movie that happens to have Adam Sandler in it. I think I've discussed the difference between those two before. An Adam Sandler movie is something like Don't Mess With the Zohan in which Sandler plays a head case with an annoying accent and ends up doing things like throwing fish in the air and catching it in his ass (something that happened in Zohan to the apparent delight of the bikini models who were watching despite the fact that the fish were literally now shit stained). A movie with Adam Sandler is something like Spanglish, something that can still be quite funny but is more down to earth and deals with serious themes. Movies with Adam Sandler in them can be very pleasant experiences. Adam Sandler movies can make you consider burning down the theater. Let's hope Funny People is the first one.

Ugly Being The Operative Word

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You Heard It Here First

I'm still annoyed I had to miss Comic-Con this year. If you aren't there either and share my frustration, we can all work together and do something about it. I'm going to create some fake rumors and I want you all to help spread them. True, there aren't many of you reading this, but if history has taught us anything, it's that even a small group can band together and make a difference.

• A massive swarm of bedbugs has invaded Comic-Con and anyone who was there is infested with them. You should avoid anyone who was anywhere near Comic-Con lest you end up covered with bedbug bites.
• The surviving members of Led Zeppelin got together over the weekend and played their greatest concert ever for anyone who wasn't at Comic-Con.
• Comic-Con had clips of the new Twilight movie. You should say that the clips they saw were fake and that you saw clips of the real movie, a good version that is noticeably lacking in moussed up pretty boys with shiny skin who woo girls by saying they should take it as a compliment that he wants to kill them.
• You know all those hot girls at Comic-Con dressed as Wonder Woman or Princess Leia? They were all dudes.
• Tell everyone you had an awesome time over the weekend watching a double feature of two incredible new movies, Orphan and The Ugly Truth. This one will be a hard sell. Hopefully, these smug Comic-Con attendees will believe you and rush out to see these two awful movies, an experience that will erase any and all joy they felt at Comic-Con.
• We all went to Awesome-Con which was 8 bazillion times better than Comic-Con. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford and George Lucas were all there to announce a new series of Star Wars films and all attendees received actual copies of Action Comics #1.
• Turns out there was something in the water at Comic-Con that causes people to grow extra nipples and causes their asses to turn blue.
• A curse was cast over Comic-Con. No one who was there will ever know true love.

As for that last one, even if I knew ahead of time that this was true, I'd have still wanted to go. Oh well, guess I'll mope for the rest of the weekend. See you all next week.

Look At My Briefs -- 7/23/09

Hey everyone, it's Thursday. If you're wondering why everything is great, why the Sun is shining a little more brightly and why your bagel tastes really awesome, it's because Thursday is the day you get the new edition of Look At My Briefs.

As an avid fan of World of Warcraft, I was more interested in what I would find the next time I cleaned my belly button than I was when they announced a WoW movie last year. I assumed it would be some piece of crap written by a computer and directed by the guy who did Meet Dave. Turns out I was wrong. Somehow, they actually managed to land Sam Raimi to direct their movie. I had no idea Blizzard (the company that makes the Warcraft games) was actually serious about making a decent movie. I figured they regarded the movie idea as a source of a large one-time payment and the result would be some hideous pseudo-film that would come out in early January and be gone in a week. Not that this particular scenario couldn't still happen, of course, as anyone who ever saw The Gift can tell you.

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Why do they still call it Comic-Con? Looking through their program, maybe 1/3 of what goes on there has anything to do with comics anymore. They could call it Dental-Hygiene-Con or Drillbit-Safety-Expo and be just as relevant. I'm calling for everyone to share my outrage and boycott Comic-Con! Am I doing this because I really wanted to go but couldn't swing it? In answer to that, let me present to you an extra large portion of Kiss My Ass. Just boycott the damn thing.

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9 looks like it at least has the potential to be a great movie. I've yet to see anything that makes this movie look like it's infected with the Stupid Virus even though one of its producers is the director of the mindbogglingly stupid Wanted, a movie in which God hands out assassination orders by moving stitches in linen. The director, Shane Acker, was actually allowed to do expand his short feature of the same name and, from what has been said and heard, has more or less done it his way. That's just amazing.

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Hercules at AICN lodged a minor complaint that neither Edward James Olmos nor Mary McDonnell received an Emmy nomination for the final season of Battlestar Galactica. Cool, I was looking for a reason to once again trash Battlestar Galactica. GO TO HELL YOU STUPID MISERABLE FUCKWITS! Can't wait till Battlestar Galactica: the Plan comes out later this year so I can do that again.

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It's against my nature to post spoilers even when most people already know them. Still, I heartily encourage you to Google "Orphan ending spoiler" and discover for yourself why even people who'd never think of doing this normally are having a great deal of fun spoiling what may be the stupidest plot twist in the history of cinema.